SpaceX launches crew members to International Space Station on 8-month mission

SpaceX on Friday launched four crew members to the International Space Station on an eight-month mission.Crew 12 commander Jessica Meir, pilot Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, buckled into a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket, and blasted off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 5:15 a.m. EST on Friday, CBS News reported.
The Falcon 9 launched on course for docking Saturday around 3:15 p.m. to increase the lab’s crew from three back to seven.
Crew 12 will join space station commander Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, fellow cosmonaut Sergey Mikaev, and NASA astronaut Chris Williams, who were launched to the lab last November aboard a Russian Soyuz ferry ship.
“It turns out Friday the 13th is a very lucky day,” SpaceX Launch Control radioed once the crew reached orbit.
“That was quite a ride,” Meir replied.
Crew 12 is replacing Crew 11 commander Zena Cardman, co-pilot Mike Fincke, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui, and cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, who were originally expected to return to Earth around Feb. 20, after a “handover” with their Crew 12 replacements.
However, NASA ordered Cardman, Fincke, Yui, and Platonov back to Earth on Jan. 15 after one of them experienced an undisclosed medical issue. Crew 11 returned safely, and they all appeared healthy and in good spirits at a post-flight news conference.
Their departure left the ISS with a single NASA astronaut aboard, Williams, to operate systems in the U.S. segment of the complex, bringing NASA research to a virtual standstill.
Crew 12 originally expected to take off after four other astronauts ventured to the moon and back in NASA’s Artemis II mission, before it was delayed until March due to hydrogen fuel leaks in the Space Launch System rocket.
The Artemis II mission delay allowed NASA to move up Crew 12’s launch to Feb. 11. The launch was pushed to Friday due to weather.

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